


Regular Kismet

by Shadow_Logic



Category: Constantine (2005), Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Families of Choice, Humor, Romance, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 06:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17157077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Logic/pseuds/Shadow_Logic
Summary: After the Near End of the World, John Constantine slowly stops existing to begin living. Happily ever after is a process, but he'll get there. Eventually.





	Regular Kismet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/gifts).



> To understand this fic, all you'll need to have seen of the movie Now You See Me (2013) is [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UmVD7z9XlU), which is a scene from the beginning of the movie. Nothing more. It contains no spoilers. If this video somehow no longer exists when you click it, search for Henley Reeves' opening scene on YouTube.

A week after the botched Apocalypse, almost to the day, John Constantine quietly decided that his apartment felt dismal enough without him in it to further depress the poor thing.

He shaved. He stocked up on sticks of gum. He put on a clean shirt and hauled ass across the city, to the part without an excess of meth-heads and stores without the wares nailed down. That part of Los Angeles wasn’t any less lonely than his own little hellhole, but it was mired in a quieter, calmer sort of loneliness. The kind that killed you slowly, in your own bed over months of Xanax and too little food, not the blood red tide that washed you away in a burst of fiery desperation, a razor to your wrist, or a bullet to your chest.

John Constantine was sick of the latter. He was sick of the former too, if he was honest.   
  
(He wasn't really sure _what_ he was looking for, if he was really, _perfectly_ honest).

He knew he was near Angela’s building – he just didn’t expect to run into her. He’d been forcing his hand to close around another pack of nicotine gum, reminding himself of how it had felt to hack out pieces of his own lungs, not thinking of smoking, oh no, definitely not –

“John,” said a voice behind him softly. He turned to see Angela in a pullover and sweats, a bag of cat food balanced on her hip. “You’re far away from your usual haunts.” Then she’d smiled, and John had felt like he had to smile too.

“Regular kismet.”

“If you say so.”

 

* * *

 

He didn’t mean to stay long. He’d helped Angela carry her groceries five blocks down and a few floors up, said hi to Duck the cat, and chewed his way through five pieces of his gum. He aimed to leave before piece number six.

Then Angela had come back from refilling Duck’s litter box with a smile. “You don’t smell like a bar alleyway.”

“Quit smoking.”

“Oh. Is it –?“

“It’s fucking hell, but still better than waiting for my lungs to come out of my mouth.”

Angela had nodded, unfazed. Then she’d gone into the kitchen to make overcooked pasta with from-the-can sauce, pulled out some pretty decent garlic bread. She had fixed a second dish wordlessly, leaving it on the coffee table beside the couch John was idling on, and had gone to eat her own pasta on the tiny dining room table.

By the time he’d finished, it was really, really late. John stared at the flecks of Neapolitan sauce clinging to the white surface of his plate, wondering why he felt so strange. As if an itch he’d never scratched had suddenly eased. Not fully gone, but better enough that he kept wondering _shit, where’d it go?_

“You could stay on that couch, you know,” spoke Angela suddenly, “it’s really late to walk home.” She didn’t talk to him about calling a cab, which was a relief. There was a Chas-shaped hole in his heart that John didn’t want to fill with any old cab or any old driver just yet.

But he couldn’t take Angela’s mothering sitting down. “There’s nothing out there to be afraid of.” With no Apocalypses oncoming, there were no pureblooded demons or angels wandering this plane. He was probably unpopular as shit amongst everyone Downstairs at that moment, but he thought he’d get a few weeks’ breather from anyone trying to kill him anyway – he’d held Mammon back, after all.

“Actually, I know for a fact that there are plenty of things to be afraid of outside,” she smiled, “I was there when the world almost ended, remember?”

John managed a smile. Angela gave him a bigger one, then picked up his plate and cutlery, keeping her eyes down. She vanished into her little kitchen before John had the wherewithal to say anything.

“Thanks for the food,” he called belatedly.

“No problem,” she answered, voice raised over the sound of running water. “I’d just like to remind you there’s muggers and rapists to be worried about too. Those won’t dissolve in holy water.”

“No…they won’t.” Nevertheless, most of John’s mind agreed that he’d overstayed his welcome. He couldn’t afford to be seen with Angela, not when shit picked up and he was back between the crosshairs. That would turn her into leverage, a human shield, even a convenient outlet for anyone with anything to settle with John Constantine.

And then there was a tiny, irritatingly rational voice in his head that reminded John of Gabriel, striving to be heard above the rest, telling him what a shitty thing it would be, to have gotten an unexpected extension just to be stabbed between the ribs by some kid desperate for a shot of heroin.

He’d meant to just rest his eyes for a moment and give the Gabriel voice in his head the reckoning it deserved. Besides the obvious trip it was to have _that_ particular voice in his head, it irritated John that he couldn’t tell anymore if this was his shoulder devil or his shoulder angel. He’d leaned back, the cushions bracing his spine, the fabric covers soft and inviting.

And then, what felt like a second later, he’d woken up to the smell of eggs, his neck aching like fucking murder and the dim, ass-crack-of-dawn light only just beginning to filter through the windows. As John blinked the haze of sleep from his eyes, Duck the cat ambled out of the kitchen and meowed.

“’Morning,” John whispered, trying to remember the last time he’d woken up to anything other than a lukewarm glass of alcohol, and failing. It wasn’t bad. He’d woken up to a sound fucking from whatever bed partner he’d picked up sometimes too, and that was nice. Rarer and rarer these days, but nice.

And yet this, domestic and quiet…

…well, John could admit to the cat that waking up to this was also nice. Nicer, even.

 

* * *

 

A week later, John woke in the middle of the night to a warm, purring pressure on his stomach.

He’d gone to his flat for three consecutive days that week. He’d known how it would feel to be back in there (cold, empty, vaguely poetic if he was feeling particularly nihilistic), had needed to attend to some business. He’d also needed to shake off the insidious, warm feeling growing in his chest with every day spent on the couch across town, because a content Constantine was a Constantine with his senses dampened. And a content Constantine wasn’t only a horrible alliteration – it meant cockiness. Cockiness got people hurt, or killed.

And then on the morning of what ought to have been his fourth day away, John threw together a suitcase with clothes, toiletries and a few books, then hauled ass to Angela’s apartment again. He’d sworn at himself all the way there, then switched to swearing at the door under his breath once the doorbell went unanswered.

 _This_ , he told himself firmly, _is a sign. Just like that Chevy ad that told you the end was nigh. Get the hell out of here._ For once he’d listened to reason and done exactly that.

His downfall had come in the shape of a little falafel truck parked a block away. The smell of herbs and frying oil had grabbed him by the nose, reminding him that he’d skipped breakfast and lunch so far. And it wasn’t like there was any harm in being in her neighborhood, alone. Work took him all over the world, and of course all over L.A. He had reasons to be here other than Angela Dodson and her cat.

He’d been half through his basket of falafel and fries when the _clack clack_ of heels approached from his left. “Hey. Thought you’d ditched.” Angela glanced at the suitcase by his feet as it sat on the pavement, then back at John sitting on the curb, puzzlement in her eyes.

John chewed thoughtfully, glancing at Angela’s pant-clad leg. He toyed with the idea of praying for inspiration before the irony of it tickled him. “Cat’ll be lonely without me.”

Angela rolled her eyes. “Duck isn’t lonely, period. He’s a cat.” But she’d ordered a shawarma to eat on the walk to the building, and had looked behind her with a raised eyebrow when John didn’t hop to after her.

Which had let to John waking up to the aforementioned cat making himself comfy on John’s stomach at far-too-fucking-early o’clock.

John had said the cat thing as a joke. Isabel Dodson’s former pet had been wary of John on their first meeting, outright terrified of him after John’s momentary sojourn into Hell with the poor creature on his lap. But despite all this, it seemed that sometime during the week, as John lingered at the apartment, the cat had finally overcome his reticence.

Maybe it was the odd hours John kept, hanging around at times when the place would have normally been alone. Maybe it was how long Angela spent away. Maybe the cat was bereaved. Whichever way it was, Duck had developed a liking for John Constantine.

 _Well, thrice be damned._ John sat up carefully, the warm weight of the dusty grey cat on his stomach. He scratched Duck under the chin with a finger, looking out at the city lights as the strange, not-quite-but-plenty-scratched itch feeling filled his chest. He felt warm with soft, soppy emotions.

“Or maybe it’s just warm cat pee. Did you just piss on me, you asshole?” Duck ignored the gentle admonition and stretched over John’s perfectly dry shirt, purring loudly.

 

* * *

 

The feeling was still with John a few hours later, when Duck woke him by kneading his stomach with his claws as if John were a cushion. He yelped, which made Angela’s head pop out a doorway with concern moments later. When she met John’s wide, indignant eyes over the form of her sister’s cat, Angela’s lips twitched.

“I think this thing’s allied with Mammon,” John gasped, yelping again a moment later as Duck’s paw slipped and really nicked him good above the belly button.

Angela lost the fight against the almighty bark of laughter hiking up her throat at that.

 

* * *

 

Chas paid them a visit three days after that.

Kind of.

John was filling his bowl with cereal, the flakes going _tink tink tink_ against the ceramic bottom as he bustled about Angela’s kitchen. He didn’t often feel like breakfast (or eating at all, really, unless he’d _really_ gone and fucked things up), but his body had been reminding him of food more and more lately. While John had always tried to have at least one real meal a day, no matter how busy he got, his diet over the past few years had been comprised of black coffee, cheap bourbon and cigarettes more often than not.

He wasn’t sure if he liked this new development. His talent for cheating hunger had been a form of penance and something to sustain his hubris quite often (the great John Constantine, above petty human foibles like food). But, OK, eating meant more energy and a little bit more focus, which was good for business. And business was suddenly thriving.

Mind thus occupied, John had passed by the sink and glanced into a mug half filled with water (Angela’s, unwashed from her own early breakfast). Something in the reflection was odd: when John focused, a rounder, plumper face than his own smiled from the water.

“Chas…” of course he wasn’t spooked. He’d seen weirder shit. Hell, he’d already seen Chas post-mortem, meeting John’s eyes for split second from behind his own tombstone.

“Hey John.” A breath of air disturbed the surface of the water, “universal conduit, right?”

“Yeah,” John said, sighing as he did.

“Been a while…how’s things? It’s not 3 AM after a demon fight and you’re eating, so I’m hoping things are good?”

John snorted, swirling the still dry cereal in his bowl. “Same old shit, really.” He wasn’t lying. Other than the place where he crashed at night and the slight upswing in the jobs he was willing to take, life was just as it had been. All the changes to the texture of reality were in John’s head.

“Hm,” Chas looked unconvinced. “I don’t recall the same old shit taking place in some hot chick’s apartment.”

That got a chuckle out of John. “Really kid? Having wings didn’t suffuse you in arcane knowledge or something? You gonna sing Johnny and Angie sitting in a fucking tree at me now? Because I _will_ hang up.” Or empty the mug. Same outcome, though with no satisfying throwing down of the receiver.

“Alright, John, alright! Cool it, jeez…”

“No saying the boss’ name in vain. You slept during orientation week over there, didn’t you. You always slept through every damn lesson.” Except what related to demon hunting, that was. Chas absorbed that like alcoholics inhaled liquor.

“Jeez doesn’t count!” Chas’ laughter was just as easy as he’d remembered it, and John felt a momentary stab of relief for having shielded him so obsessively while he lived. He’d left the world too early, but free of the taint that inevitably sank into the souls of exorcists on his side of the tracks.

Silence descended over the tiny kitchen for a moment before John spoke again. “So…” he didn’t want to ask him how Heaven was, mostly because he expected to go there himself one day. He asked the one thing that mattered to him. “So…ya happy?”

“Yeah, yeah I am”, and Chas ducked his head shyly, as if he’d told a secret, “it’s…not bad. Not bad at all. So…you can stop blaming yourself OK? I was the idiot who taunted fucking _Mammon_. I should have listened.”

“This why you phoned home?”

“Honestly, I kind of missed you. But yeah, I also wanted to save you from wallowing in shame forever like you do.”

John smiled. He studied Chas’ face, painfully familiar but for the telltale glow of his eyes - a half-breed’s glowing eyes. Chas had been a human in life, which meant he could not become a pure-blooded angel. Which also meant…

“You should drop by one of these days, kid. I’d be happy to see you.” Half-breeds could walk Earth, after all.

“I might, once training’s done.” Chas’ smiled turned a little bittersweet. “Take care of yourself, John. I’d hate to have to go pick you up too soon.”

“I’ll be careful, kid.” _And_ _thanks_.

Chas dissolved from the mug’s surface, and John finally walked the whole way to the fridge for the milk.

 

* * *

 

Later that day, as John dogged the footsteps of a young catholic priest through the Santa Clara Cemetery, he thought back to Chas and the way he lingered over the words ‘hot chick’ like a teenager.

He wasn’t about to say Angela wasn’t beautiful, because she was. Gorgeous, even half drowned, swamped in one of his silk shirts and ravaged from being carted around by winged demons. Hell, her twin Isabel had struck him as tragically beautiful, even while in her shapeless hospital gown, worn and disheveled by a long inpatient stay and the twisted landscape of Hell all around her. He would have kissed Angela that night over the Spear of Destiny, if she’d let him.

But there was something warm and familiar between them now, something safe and well….unsexy. Completely unsexy. The longer he stayed in the apartment, the more obvious it became that he and Angela weren’t in the middle of some lengthy dance of unresolved sexual tension. And that it seemed both of them were OK with that.

The young man in front of him balked, bringing John out of his reverie. He’d stopped before a wall of plaque-bearing ossuaries – one of which was shaking ever so slightly in front of them.

It was a relief really, to have something that wasn’t run through with lust with someone. His lovers and girlfriends (with the occasional boyfriends thrown into the mix) tended to stay alive for even less time than his platonic friends did, anyway. And he wanted Angela to live. He wanted to banter with her and eat with her, cook with her when she’d let him, point out to her when this or that young recruit was hitting on her so pathetically it was funny.

When the tortured being finally burst out of the ossuary, John smirked _. Looks like I’ve become the tittering gay roommate – well…that’s kind of OK. Yeah. I’m OK with that. Not a bad thing to be. I could do with a place to rest my head_. And so the last thing the tainted soul saw, before its liberation by fire, was the split-second in which John Constantine’s face eased in peaceful joy.

 

* * *

 

As if to reaffirm his position, Angela tried to kiss him two days later.

They’d been washing dishes – yeah, John Constantine, roommate extraordinaire, did in fact wash dishes, whereas too-cool-for-you-I’m-a-lone-wolf John Constantine had not – and Angela had turned to hand him a cup.

He’d turned towards her unconsciously, and suddenly they were face to face. Angela hesitated. Then came closer. And closer still. When John could feel her breath on his bottom lip, he’d sighed.

“Angela.” _You don’t really want me to be the one kissing you_ , he thought.

But he didn’t say it aloud. He _liked_ Angela. He had a soft spot in his heart for her, the kind of soft spot one only ever develops with a companion at arms. A sister in pain and suffering.

 He’d kiss her back, if she kissed him. He’d let her fuck him, if it escalated to that. He’d make sure it was good, even, and it’d be no hardship because Angela was beautiful and gentle. But though John was no Seer, he could see where they’d go then: clean off the rails, a fling gone too complex for the name. Angela would realize he wasn’t right for her sooner or later. Or worse, she might even realize John had surrendered to her, more than chosen her, and the doubts and betrayal would come. It’d be a mess.

He wasn’t going to be able to say no to Angela, if she asked. And then he’d lose her, because bodily pleasure and fraternal affections were a poison when taken together. John braced himself, closed his eyes…and then Angela’s face stopped inching in on him.

John breathed a sigh of relief. She always did that – just when John thought she was about to make one of those sad, mortal mistakes, she turned around and surprised him. Always in the best way.

“Is this…”

“No,” said John softly. “We don’t have to.” And, for once, he knew he hadn’t said the wrong words.

Angela’s face retreated into view, a shy smile on her face. She was deeply embarrassed, even though she didn’t want John to notice.

“Loneliness gets the best of us sometimes.”

Angela closed her eyes. “It really, really does.” Then she opened them and her gaze was clear. “I think I love you, John.”

“Me too.”

“I haven’t…not since Isabel.”

John held back a chuckle. He had the Sight, same as Isabel. He and Angela had endured a lot of shit together, just like her and Isabel. He wasn’t as pretty as either of the Dodson sisters, but he thought he could make do.

A sister. He’d never had a sister. But he could try being one, and he smiled at Angela. “S’ok. I’ve never…but we work good enough as a team, I think.”

 

* * *

 

 He met Henley Reeves about a month after that. Regular kismet too, he’d call it – whether because God kinda hated him, because he’d settled things with Angela in the intervening weeks and his life wasn’t complete without someone shaking it up, he wasn’t sure. But the hand of Fate was involved here. John could have recognized Her grubby little fingerprints anywhere.

The outing had been Angela’s idea. She’d gotten good tickets, she’d said. It had been a long time since they’d done anything but sit around the apartment.

“It’s a magic show. Real good, I heard. Don’t make that face John!”

“What face?”

“The one where there’s, I don’t know, shit under your nose. Henley Reeves is a famous escapist.”

John imagined Henley Reeves as a middle-aged man dressed in Victorian finery who sat and read a novel in front of his audience for a few minutes. Then he’d nap, for a moment perhaps, then sit up and say “well, the tagline did say it was escapism, didn’t it?” He couldn’t offend Angela with his derisive words if he just thought them. “Thought you’d be up-to-your-tits done with magic at this point, babes.” There, now that he could say aloud.

“I am. This is pretend magic. It can’t hurt me.”

John agreed to go after far too little resistance, he thought later. He was getting soft. Oh well, at least he’d get to laugh at Angela’s face if everything went wrong.

 

* * *

 

They were both wrong.

The tickets, despite being complimentary, really were good. All the tickets were good when the girl – because Henley Reeves turned out to be a _girl_ – was up on a tank surrounded by scaffolding in the center of an old warehouse, visible to everyone the entire 360° around her.

Henley Reeves walked up the scaffolding in a fancy black dress suit, two eager young men picked out from the audience at the top ramp waiting for her with puppylike anticipation. When Henley peeled off her jacket and tossed it at the audience beneath her, the crowd went wild.

She moved without shame, like she owned the ground beneath her very feet. She announced her own act (“when that timer hits zero, a tank of flesh-eating piranhas will fall from above!”), charming her audience, and the salivating young men put their hands on either side of the black silk suit and pulled –

\- which tore the whole thing off Henley like it was made of tissue paper, revealing a glittery cream one-piece bathing suit beneath.

“So that’s why the heels didn’t match the dress!” Exclaimed a girl nearby. John stole a look at Angela, but she looked about as unconcerned with Henley Reeves’ footwear as John was, and he relaxed.

Henley played her audience well. She was cheeky, but not vapid. She exuded control and containment, but she was fun. And OK, John would admit she looked pretty good in her shiny bathing suit, even once she was in the water tank. The little bathing suit seemed even brighter underwater, and Henley’s red hair flared about like a rare fish’s tail above her head.

The timer ticked on. The handcuffs were off, but the solid chain at Henley’s feet refused to give.

Fifteen seconds left. Henley looked up, terror clear in her eyes, and she started banging against the glass as the cheers around them turned to horrified shrieks –

\- _something’s wrong, and it’s not the girl in the tank._

It was in the way the conveniently placed axe that one of Henley’s young men found on a stack of crates glanced harmlessly off the tank’s glass. His instincts yelled _bulletproof_ , and he’d have to check more carefully after the show, but the odd clang was not the clang of any old glass wall.

It was in how Henley had no attendants, no handlers coming to the rescue. Unless this girl had a death wish, or she was remarkably stupid, she should have failsafes in place to avoid an accident of this precise kind, but there wasn’t a single person anywhere qualified to help. It was almost as if –

The timer hit zero just as Henley surged to the surface. The piranhas fell over her in a torrent. The screaming crowd rushed towards the tank in outrage, banging against the glass in a vain attempt to frighten the hungry fish off of the defenseless girl.

Beside him, Angela gasped and clasped his arm, but she didn’t run forward. Savior-complex, compassionate Angela, not rushing to help. John quietly called bullshit, even as the tank’s water ran red and the frantic movement within it stopped. Scarlet-red water sloshed over the top, making the crowd back away in terror.

Just as the grim silence had begun to thicken, a high voice rent through it, clean as a thunderclap.

“C’mon this is bullshit! Whoever thought of this is a sick sadist!”

Henley’s voice.

Almost as one, the crowd turned to find her in their midst, shiny cream bathing suit gleaming with water, long hair plastered and wet but intact. Relief and joy swept over everyone as the crowd cheered and Henley, smiling, turned to accept high fives and fist bumps. A large man slipped a can of beer into her hand.

John turned to Angela. “Someone tell you this would happen?”

“Biggs from Narcotics said it was going to get really, really ugly, but to remember it was an act.” Angela snorted. “Really ugly - try near death experience, Biggs. I am going to kick his ass,” she said, prompting a laugh out of John. She looked a little white, shaken even, but even as he looked a little color was seeping back into her cheekbones.

He was wrong. This was kinda fun. Messed up too, but then John’s humor was kind of messed up as well. But…”you were wrong, babes.”

“If this isn’t enough excitement for you, John Constantine – “

“No no, you were right about the fun. But you’re wrong about this being just an act – that kid has some hedge magic in her.”

 

* * *

 

 They hung back until the end of the show. Only a few hardcore fans – all young people, males and females – were left, those who’d come with someone chattering with excitement, those alone looking this way and that like cats chasing lasers.

When Henley finally appeared, in jeans and a plain white t-shirt, wringing her hair out into a hand towel, a smaller cheer erupted. “Thank you!” Henley smiled around the crowd before they slowly trickled forward, some already producing pictures or pads of paper for autographs.

John and Angela were the last to approach. “Awesome show,” Angela began with sincerity.

“Thank you!” Henley had a way of saying things like she meant them. “First time?”

“Yeah.”

“Oof. Sorry about the blood and guts,” she said, then chuckled disarmingly. “I hope I haven’t put you off escapism forever.”

“No harm done. I’m Angela. This is my brother John.”

John managed not to whip around to stare at Angela’s easy lie as Henley turned to him, unaware of the momentousness of the occasion she was witnessing. “I can see the family resemblance.”

But John recovered fast. “You’ve got to be kidding. Pretty skips a generation,” said John. Then, in a stage whisper, “I’m younger.”

Angela batted at his arm playfully as Henley laughed. “Well, it’s been a treat meeting you. Hope you come see more shows!” And she smiled, dazzlingly, before making to leave.

John drew a careful breath. “Hey. What’s the trick. With the piranhas.”

“A magician never reveals her secrets.” Henley was already click-clacking away.

John remembered how still the tank had gone. “The fish aren’t real, are they?”

Henley stumbled. “I said no telling.” Her steps might have hurried up just a little.

John smiled at her retreating back. “Are you the kind who gets into Papa Midnite’s without a membership?”

Henley came to a full halt. When she turned, her large hazel eyes were wide. “What did you say?”

“Knew it.”

The whole wrong-footed virgin thing didn’t look that bad on Henley. She glanced at John, then at Angela and back at John again. “Are you the kind who gets in too?”

John nodded. “My full name is John Constantine.”

Henley stared, then smirked. “The Hellblazer.”

Well, that was unexpected. Most of the people who knew him from the height of his career (or, more honestly, from the few years of good luck before reality hit and he’d turned into a chain-smoking schmuck, who sometimes did really hard banishings) were either mad at him or wanted a whiff of his boxer briefs. Henley just looked vaguely amused. Maybe a little awed. “I just go by ‘that asshole exorcist’ these days.”

“It’s still an honor, sir.” She held out her hand, and Constantine shook it. “You did good work before. Heard you’d pretty much kicked the bucket, and then,” Henley spread her hands in a sort of abracadabra gesture, “a renaissance.”

“That’s what they’re calling it?”

“They’re actually saying you gave Lucifer the middle finger, but you can’t believe everything you hear over a Ouija board.”

John snorted. OK, the kid was spunky. He’d give her that. “Demons like their tall tales.”

Henley chuckled. “Well, you’re welcome to my show anytime, sir. You and your sister.”

“Not your private practice?”

When she ducked shyly like that, her hair spread delicately over one shoulder like in a Pantene ad. “I just do the occasional tarot reading for some heartbroken girlfriend. Bust a ghost or two if it’s within walking distance. I don’t have a real business, other than escapism.”

John shrugged. “See you around anyway.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“Call me John.”

“If you’ll call me Henley.”

“Got it, kid.”

Henley scrunched up her nose like an angry mouseling. “Ok, _sir_.”

 

* * *

 

Balthazar re-emerged the following day.

John had performed a few simple exorcisms near Silverlake, which had left him free by five, the time at which his stomach filed a formal complaint against him for skipping lunch. He’d found himself a cozy little bar and restaurant place on Rowena Avenue, a converted firehouse that turned out to serve _fucking awesome_ comfort food. It was nice but quiet, dangerously close to cheap, full with a t-shirt-and-jeans crowd that eyed John funny for a few minutes.

It was, in short, the last place he ever expected to run into a demon in. Any demon. Particularly not the vain, covetous kind of demon who posed as a Wall Street stockbroker because it let him look good in suits.  
  
But it happened.  
  
John looked over the edge of his Impossible Burger when a shadow manifested over the edge of the bun, to see Balthazar, looking at him with the mixture of barely restrained aggression and heat that always made John want to wash his hands.

“ _John_.”

“Balthazar. Fancy meeting you here,” John said with venom. He took a bite of his hamburger defiantly. Then he lowered it to the plate and made a grand show of licking the sauces off his fingers, slow and deliberate. He saw Balthazar’s eyes dilate, mouth slowly falling open, and could have crowed in delight as Balthazar’s face fell in dismay at remembering that he couldn’t even sneeze on John. Not in this plane of existence, not with balance restored. If he hit, John could hit back, and his ass would be shipped back to Hell.

 Dismay turned to impotent rage in Balthazar’s face. “All I had,” he hissed, “was a tiny taste of you. A minuscule lick. A _nothing_. I don’t miss Hell quite so much when you happen to be around, you prick, because not being able to lay a _finger_ on you is the kind of _torture_ the Greeks used to sing about.”

John had lamented his youthful, idiotic near-involvement with Balthazar often enough. He was only just beginning to make a name for himself as an exorcist back then, he’d never been with a man, and he’d gotten it into his head that maybe he could redeem this one demon through love. Which, at the age he’d been, was hard to separate from sex. It had only been once. And then John realized it was his soul in the bargain, so he got the hell-with-a-lowercase-h out. Balthazar had been furious. He’d made sure shit rained on John every chance he got, after that. Hell hath no fury as a demon scorned.

So, if John’s only relief was the rare chance to rub Balthazar’s face in what he absolutely would not have, John was going to go to fucking town with it. “Sucks to be the one getting fucked sometimes, huh?”

Balthazar’s indignant, thoroughly sex-frustrated huff was pure, 24 karat _gold_ to John’s ears. “You didn’t _know_ fucked before me, John Constantine.”

“And I didn’t know it afterwards either.” He flicked his paper napkin at Balthazar lazily. Then something in the napkin sizzled in the air between them – a tiny bolt of electricity, caused by a minor charm known as Saint Barbara’s Kiss.

John balked. He hadn’t meant to do anything but flick the greasy paper at Balthazar. Greasy, unmagicked paper. But the offense was given. Balthazar, enraged, lunged at him. John had one hand on his burger – there was no time to reach for anything (not a knife, not a spoon, not the fucking ketchup wrapper).

He had time to feel mild irritation at his manner of death (died from a full mouth? Mauled over a burger? The tabloids were going to fuck him in his dead ass for weeks!) when another burst of electricity, larger and brighter this time, knocked Balthazar on _his_ ass instead.

The restaurant patrons around Constantine jolted and gasped. They couldn’t see what was going on – he and Balthazar were both using mild misdirection to keep roaming eyes away from them, he suspected – but they had noticed the flash. Someone shouted “power surge!”, but nobody moved. After a moment passed without any more of a light show, each returned to their plate.

Constantine got up to look over the edge of his table. Sprawled on the carpet, human mask flushing red, Balthazar only barely managed to close his mouth around a roar. “You won’t give me the bloody time of day, but you let that little Reeves _bint_ get close enough to put her dirty claws on you? _In_ _you_!?”

“Huh?”

John’s bewildered expression was completely lost on Balthazar. “ _Do_ call up your little whore and warn her that she’s on my shit list now.” He gathered himself off the floor and turned as dignifiedly as he could on his heel.

John watched him go out the door, frozen, before reaching down to pick up the balled-up paper.

He would still take the thing to Angela. The charm had gone from his hand into the napkin, John thought, but Angela might just manage to pick up on who the charm had lived in before, like she’d seen Balthazar flipping his coin.

But if Balthazar had already told him it came from Henley Reeves…

“Well…shit.”

 

* * *

 

“Hello. This is Henley Reeves.”

“Hey kid.”

There was shuffling on the other line. When Henley next spoke, she was much quieter. “John? John Constantine?”

“Yeah.” John’s hand fumbled on the wireless receiver for a moment.

“Fancy hearing from you again.”

“Yeah.” John wasn’t the kind to beat around the bush. “Did you put a spell on me?”

“…was that a pick up line?”

John chuckled in spite of himself. “No no, I mean it literally. A charm, a protection of some sort?”

“I don’t – “

John sighed. Hedge magic was called hedge magic because its wielders were untrained, magic from little border places tapped into almost by mistake – often, hedge mages were people who grew up in perfectly ordinary settings, probably even unaware that magic was real, until they woke up to discover they’d levitated their bed onto a sky-scraper one day. Some might learn to wing it, sans books or tutors. Some, like Henley, even attained some mastery of it. _Some_ being the operative word there. “You accidentally gave me a demon-zapping spell.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Whoops?” More shuffling. “How’d you know it was a demon-zapping spell?”

“Because it caused me to zap a half-demon with a balled-up paper napkin.”

“Ohhhh.” Henley sounded distinctly guilty. She might not be an educated mage, but if she ran with Papa Midnite’s crowd, she knew enough about the rules, the balance – and that John Constantine had far more than enough trouble already without going around zapping half-breeds unprovoked.

John found a little bit of mercy for her, someplace. “The half-demon I zapped was already out for my balls, so no foul. Buuuut he might have mentioned he wants to go after you now.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“You know Balthazar? Likes suits, stockbroking and dragging human souls into Hell, screaming as they go? British.”

“Oh - _that_ piss patch? Oh yeah! He hired my show for some fancy pants party of his and tried to stiff me on the payment two years ago!” The distant clacking of heels against linoleum came through the phone, “he doesn’t like me.”

“Well…he now thinks you’re fucking me, and likes you even less.”

The sound of heels stopped abruptly.

John braced for her to splutter in outrage. Maybe she’d laugh, then ask if he was serious, then ask what the hell-with-a-lowercase-h a damn _exorcist_ had done to make a demon sexually possessive of him. Maybe she’d hang up.

None of that happened. “He thinks I’m fucking you. Not the other way around.” She snickered. “You that famous as a bottom, John Constantine?”

“Nothing wrong with being the pitcher, kid.”

“Woah!” She sounded more awed than horrified at his gall.

John snickered. “As fun as this banter is, you’re in danger. You’ve managed very impressive illusions, but if a minor spell made it from your hand to mine without you noticing, what you can do now won’t be enough to keep you out of trouble with Balthazar’s crowd.”

“So what do I do? Move? Change my name?” She sounded serious and resigned – she’d done this, this leaving her life for a whole new one, before. “I kinda like Los Angeles.”

“Oh no, I need you right here, where I can keep an eye on you. And we need to put all those pretty sparkles of yours to good use.” _I might also need an assistant now that Chas has a higher calling_ , he thought. Then balked. Then reasoned it wasn’t that bad an idea – for later. When there wasn’t a hunt out for the kid.

“Alright. Wanna meet for coffee? So we can discuss my impending doom at length?”

“Why not.”

“OK! I like this place called Edendale, on Rowena Avenue. They do nice burgers.”

John knew that, as he’d been eating one of their burgers, at one of their tables, when Balthazar sprung on him. “Great.” A beat. “I’m paying.”

“7 PM, John Constantine. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t.”

“OK. Bye.”

John Constantine was too old to play the no-you-hang-up. He said “bye” and hung up without hesitating. He was too old to get nervous over a date with a hot young woman – there had been many before. If this didn’t work out, there would be many after.

And he was also too old to brush it off when the unrelenting itch of loneliness that had assuaged with Angela’s sisterhood, Chas’ occasional check-ups and Duck’s fairweather affections disappeared altogether at the thought of Henley’s irritated nose scrunch.

 

* * *

 

 

That night, well before Angela's shift was up, a knock came to his - well, Angela's - door. John got up, feeling goosebumps all down his arms before he'd even reached the doorknob. 

 _Living, kinda. Probably means no ill will if he's knocking._ He opened the door, inward, and managed not to balk as Chas Kramer gave him a very manly nod in greeting. "Hey John," he said cheerfully, slipping past John and into the apartment. Like he hadn't been a face in a body of water or a distant voice on John's phone for months. Like his cab was waiting for John outside, and nothing had ever changed. He stopped in the middle of the room, glancing at the kitchen and the hall. "Nice. All this clean and tidy give you an allergy yet?"

"Not yet. Angela's cat sheds and pisses around a little to keep the balance." 

"Cool." Chas plopped down on John's bed - well, Angela's couch - and looked up at John expectantly, as if it were John and not him in charge of the explanations.

Well. When in Rome..."are you here to herald another Apocalypse?"

"No."

"Tidings of comfort and joy?" It wasn't December yet.

Chas pretended to press a game show buzzer. "Ehhhh. Try again."

"...here to pick me up?" John felt healthy enough. The radiology work, the blood work, it had all come back clean. Dr Archer, iron-willed and weathered, had even teared up as she gave him a clean bill of health. _After all that, that'd be a shame. Just when life's looking up, too._

But Chas was shaking his head. "Nope. That's three strikes." The boy (the angel, wow, now that threw John for a loop) sat up on the couch with the same smile he used to wear whenever John told him do something other than drive from point A to point B and fast, godammit. "You're my new assignment."

"...what?"

"Angel bootcamp's over." He spread his hands. "You're my new job."

John processed the words slowly, like an overworked computer. "You're my...guardian angel?"

"Yes! Finally, he gets it!" Chas' smile grew a bit, a flash of teeth showing. "The Powers That Be are really sick of all your friends and loved ones dying and sending you into destructive depressions. They want you to stay on the straight and narrow this time, figured some divine intervention would help. Also you need some clothes tips for your hot date with the redhead, so I volunteered." Never mind that Chas only ever wore Salvation Army finds and John's cast-offs, before.

"Get outta here. Really?"

"Really. And you can't banish an angel, John Constantine. Not even a half-breed of an angel."

"Fair enough," John conceded, then took the four steps remaining between himself and Chas, throwing one arm around his shoulders, then the other. "Missed ya, kid."

"Me too John." He wrapped his own arms around John's middle and made the kind of quiet, contented sound Duck made when he stretched out on a soft surface.   
  
Even though John could see his wings, feel the gentle hum of something otherworldy under the slim shoulder he was clasping, Chas felt small and fragile. John knew he'd never really grow out of being protective of him, angel or not.  
  
There were keys in the lock. Angela came in a few moments later, bag of takeout hanging from her arm. "Hey John," she said, like she always did. Then she looked up and saw the strange kid in her house for all of a second before her Sight gave her a flash of glowing eyes and large, ash-grey wings. "Wha-"  
  
"Angela. Babes. This is Chas." John let them stare at each other for a beat. "Think we have room for one more lost kitten?"  
  
The bag slipped out of Angela's grasp, claterring noisily to the floor. The scent of soy sauce, Chop Suey and Teriyaki chicken wafted out into the room. Chas, looking very much indeed like an actual lost kitten, stared at the growing spills. "I, um, I...I know how to use the litter box?"

John guffawed.  
 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide, Alby Mangroves! I saw your name on the list of pinch hitters we could consider writing treats for, and I remembered you'd written for The Eagle. Well, anyone who likes Esca and Marcus is a friend of mine.
> 
> And then I saw your prompt! It was like finding candy. I could have such FUN writing for all of that. I wrote like a flurry for days then...fell asleep before I could post this pre main collection deadline. 
> 
> Whoops.
> 
> I wish it could have made its way to you earlier! But it's here. I hope you like it.
> 
> I tried to unkill Chas to the best of my ability, but his being an angel means he can be with John as often as he likes, free of danger. I hope it still works for you!
> 
> I had never, ever even considered John Constantine and Henley Reeves in the same sentence, but when it turned out that John and Angela just Would Not Gel as a couple, no matter what I slipped them, I scrambled a little for someone fitting for several days. Henley cropped up. I am now a hard-core shipper of these two. I may write more of them together someday - but mostly I hope *you* like it. 
> 
> I will not be at all upset if any of this doesn't work for you. This is unorthodox, and I have thick skin. I just hope you get something awesome from someone else, because I love happy endings. We need more of those.


End file.
